Pete's Programme (Single Digit to Tour Player)

[Huddo]

It is indeed, I know Graham well. If you'd prefer a game at your place or Pottergate it'd be fine, Blankney can be a little daunting when you first set out. If not, no issues. I'm playing for Pottergate this year and we have a match at your place against your 1st team on 4th July, I need to get a practice round in there sometime soon as I've never been round your course. If it's not 'consorting with the enemy' too much we could hit the course together if only to show me what it's like, no pressure to score well :)

Think it'd go down ok with your team. We had a friendly against Welton at ours not long ago, just got pipped by one hole in my first ever match by the guy who I think is going to be your captain this year (Irish lad, either Chris or Simon, awful at remembering names) and a lad called Arron who played for Woodhall 1st team last year I believe so I currently have a zero percent success rate :) Anyway, we all got on pretty well and they'll be coming over to use my 'swing studio' and launch monitor some time so I don't think they could complain if I got a tour of your course :)

I will send you a PM so that we don't bore the masses with our arrangements!

[Nosevi]

I will send you a PM so that we don't bore the masses with our arrangements!

Good idea :)

[Nosevi]

Well, I said  would pop back from time to time to update so might as well do that now as quite a bit has moved on from last lime I posted.

First thing is I've had a tonne of help as far as tracking progress and stats is concerned from @RandallT . From on course strokes gained spreadsheets to the latest addition - cracking the formulae used in the Trackman Combine to allow me to hit combines on my own launch monitor and directly compare the score to the Trackman combine leaderboards and handicap levels - Randy has helped me to see where I am in different aspects of my game and more importantly where I need to concentrate my training. I'm not sure if he's aware but he is quite literally driving the programme from the other side of the Atlantic.

Practice wise I've sort of settled into a routine, albeit subject to change of focus as directed by Randy (indirectly). I'm spending more and more time practising with the 2 tour pros I've 'teamed' up with. I tend to practice with one or other about 3 times a week. Long game with Brian as that's clearly his forte (the guy drives the ball 350 yards every other drive - this is not an exaggeration - and strikes his long irons so purely....) and Jess for short game as that's very much her strong suit, no matter where she is she gets up and down. Between the two of them they are seriously helping my game. My driving distance average is up to around the 290 yard mark thanks largely to sessions with Brian involving looking at back to back videos between him and me and comparing it with launch data that each of us achieve together with a fair amount of instruction from him. Much of my recent training has been in trying to build a reliable short game with Jess. We tend to compete at everything - putting, chipping, pitching competitions - if you can work out a scoring system we'll compete for it.

Physically I've come on a bit and lost 21 pounds so far, still a way to go mind you. I've concentrated on core stability and conditioning with low weight, high rep being the order of the day. Plan is to worry about power later on but for now I need to build basic strength and get in better shape to avoid injuries. I definitely feel better for it and the ball is going further too which is a bonus.

Practice wise is a combination of swing studio work, using cameras to assess where I'm going wrong and occasionally where I'm going right, lots of time around the practice green playing a game me, Jess and Brian play - par 18 (You can chip and do small pitches onto our putting green so the idea is you give yourself the worst lies you can or the longest 2 putts you can imagine and you have to get down in 2 from anywhere. To start with I was rubbish but now I'll back myself to get the ball in the hole in 2 shots most of the time) or out on the course.

Another aspect I've been able to do is shadow Brian on the run up and through a tournament. I followed his practice routine and then walked with him (on the fairway for much of the time) during an event. He got to being in 2nd place out of the 168 pros in the event but a dropped shot coming in dropped him back to 4th in the end. Chatting to him and seeing how him and his caddy worked as a team was a great experience and well worth having done. Over the week building up to the tournament and during it I missed a fair amount of my own practice time but in the grand scheme of things it was well worth it.

Going back to something I said earlier, Randy has decoded the scores given in the Trackman Combine for me, at least to within about 0.1 of a point, so I shot my first combine today. I scored 82.2 which is quite a pat on the back for all the work I've put in in the long game as well as a real spur on to put in more effort as I can see results are starting to materialise. Putting 82.2 in perspective it would put me number 2 on the worldwide Trackman Leaderboard for Amateurs this month so far (although I'm sure I'll slip further down with that score) and according to Trackman's literature just below top tier Tour average at 82.9. I'm actually aiming at what they term "Developmental Tour" which they score at 80.6 so it's pretty clear that my winter on long game has paid off and I really need to switch priorities to the short game now.

I'm just starting playing for my club's first team although all our matches against other clubs are matchplay so a win or lose is kind of dependant on the other guy but it'll give me the opportunity to put some of this practice into, well, practice. My captain has kindly also put me in the number one slot on the team meaning I will always tee off with all the other players on both teams watching, just to make sure I feel a bit of first tee nerves :)

Well, that's it for now - hard work and a structured approach (as directed by Randy's stats) is paying off. I have my performance targets in the tour pros I practice with helping me along and am starting to get somewhere. Early days - I started in September so we're 9 months in and am giving myself 4 years to get to where I want to be but if I'm honest I'm further forward than I thought I'd be by now (ignore the handicap - that won't change very quickly as we have a barking mad system over here). Planning and putting everything in place before starting was definitely a good call.

[rkim291968]

I'm spending more and more time practising with the 2 tour pros I've 'teamed' up with.

.

.

.

Another aspect I've been able to do is shadow Brian on the run up and through a tournament. I followed his practice routine and then walked with him (on the fairway for much of the time) during an event.

I'd suspect that's really going to help your effort.   I wish I have similar luck.

[Big C]

Well, I said  would pop back from time to time to update so might as well do that now as quite a bit has moved on from last lime I posted.

First thing is I've had a tonne of help as far as tracking progress and stats is concerned from @RandallT . From on course strokes gained spreadsheets to the latest addition - cracking the formulae used in the Trackman Combine to allow me to hit combines on my own launch monitor and directly compare the score to the Trackman combine leaderboards and handicap levels - Randy has helped me to see where I am in different aspects of my game and more importantly where I need to concentrate my training. I'm not sure if he's aware but he is quite literally driving the programme from the other side of the Atlantic.

Practice wise I've sort of settled into a routine, albeit subject to change of focus as directed by Randy (indirectly). I'm spending more and more time practising with the 2 tour pros I've 'teamed' up with. I tend to practice with one or other about 3 times a week. Long game with Brian as that's clearly his forte (the guy drives the ball 350 yards every other drive - this is not an exaggeration - and strikes his long irons so purely....) and Jess for short game as that's very much her strong suit, no matter where she is she gets up and down. Between the two of them they are seriously helping my game. My driving distance average is up to around the 290 yard mark thanks largely to sessions with Brian involving looking at back to back videos between him and me and comparing it with launch data that each of us achieve together with a fair amount of instruction from him. Much of my recent training has been in trying to build a reliable short game with Jess. We tend to compete at everything - putting, chipping, pitching competitions - if you can work out a scoring system we'll compete for it.

Physically I've come on a bit and lost 21 pounds so far, still a way to go mind you. I've concentrated on core stability and conditioning with low weight, high rep being the order of the day. Plan is to worry about power later on but for now I need to build basic strength and get in better shape to avoid injuries. I definitely feel better for it and the ball is going further too which is a bonus.

Practice wise is a combination of swing studio work, using cameras to assess where I'm going wrong and occasionally where I'm going right, lots of time around the practice green playing a game me, Jess and Brian play - par 18 (You can chip and do small pitches onto our putting green so the idea is you give yourself the worst lies you can or the longest 2 putts you can imagine and you have to get down in 2 from anywhere. To start with I was rubbish but now I'll back myself to get the ball in the hole in 2 shots most of the time) or out on the course.

Another aspect I've been able to do is shadow Brian on the run up and through a tournament. I followed his practice routine and then walked with him (on the fairway for much of the time) during an event. He got to being in 2nd place out of the 168 pros in the event but a dropped shot coming in dropped him back to 4th in the end. Chatting to him and seeing how him and his caddy worked as a team was a great experience and well worth having done. Over the week building up to the tournament and during it I missed a fair amount of my own practice time but in the grand scheme of things it was well worth it.

Going back to something I said earlier, Randy has decoded the scores given in the Trackman Combine for me, at least to within about 0.1 of a point, so I shot my first combine today. I scored 82.2 which is quite a pat on the back for all the work I've put in in the long game as well as a real spur on to put in more effort as I can see results are starting to materialise. Putting 82.2 in perspective it would put me number 2 on the worldwide Trackman Leaderboard for Amateurs this month so far (although I'm sure I'll slip further down with that score) and according to Trackman's literature just below top tier Tour average at 82.9. I'm actually aiming at what they term "Developmental Tour" which they score at 80.6 so it's pretty clear that my winter on long game has paid off and I really need to switch priorities to the short game now.

I'm just starting playing for my club's first team although all our matches against other clubs are matchplay so a win or lose is kind of dependant on the other guy but it'll give me the opportunity to put some of this practice into, well, practice. My captain has kindly also put me in the number one slot on the team meaning I will always tee off with all the other players on both teams watching, just to make sure I feel a bit of first tee nerves :)

Well, that's it for now - hard work and a structured approach (as directed by Randy's stats) is paying off. I have my performance targets in the tour pros I practice with helping me along and am starting to get somewhere. Early days - I started in September so we're 9 months in and am giving myself 4 years to get to where I want to be but if I'm honest I'm further forward than I thought I'd be by now (ignore the handicap - that won't change very quickly as we have a barking mad system over here). Planning and putting everything in place before starting was definitely a good call.

Great stuff. Thanks for the update, Pete. I'm curious to follow your progress so please keep the posts coming as your schedule permits.

[Nosevi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nosevi

I'm spending more and more time practising with the 2 tour pros I've 'teamed' up with.

.

.

.

Another aspect I've been able to do is shadow Brian on the run up and through a tournament. I followed his practice routine and then walked with him (on the fairway for much of the time) during an event.

I'd suspect that's really going to help your effort.   I wish I have similar luck.

It was all part of the initial plan/concept to get things like this in place before I started. It was sort of like a shopping list:

- Finances that would allow me to have a minimum 4 year run at this and would cover coaching and other golf related costs including 2 years on tour at the level I'm aiming at to negate the need for sponsorship.

- Coach I see eye to eye with and who coached or had coached at the level I'm aiming at. Ended up with the head pro at our national academy.

- Practice facilities that would negate the fact I don't live somewhere you can golf all year round. Built the indoor swing studio with GC2 running the 'sim' to allow me to at least work on long game over the winter. The other 'card up my sleeve' is that my parents live in southern Spain so I have an open invite for winter training if necessary, guessing it will be as I get closer to my goal.

- Ways of tracking my progress and focusing my practice rather than just aimlessly playing golf and hoping to score lower - @RandallT has been a massive help

- Playing and practising with better players. Having two at the level I'm aiming at is a massive bonus and tbh I didn't expect to be practising with them half as much as I do.

I guess what I'm saying was that I've lucked in to an extent in each case but I think in some ways you make your own luck - it was all planned out ahead of time.

Great stuff. Thanks for the update, Pete. I'm curious to follow your progress so please keep the posts coming as your schedule permits.

Will do. Most of it is relatively boring grind right now but will stop back now and then to report from time to time.

[b101]

Will do. Most of it is relatively boring grind right now but will stop back now and then to report from time to time. :-)

As others have said, this is really interesting to follow and I'm certainly a bit jealous of what you're able to do (and that studio!). It's clear yours is far more deliberate practice than a certain other 'plan' on here - for my own personal interest in self-improvement, what would you say the best thing you have learnt about how to practise is? I.e. Ratio of long/short, priority pieces vs playing etc.

[RandallT]

Randy has helped me to see where I am in different aspects of my game and more importantly where I need to concentrate my training. I'm not sure if he's aware but he is quite literally driving the programme from the other side of the Atlantic.

It has been very interesting to see all that goes on in your "programme," and maybe all of the whining I've done about TheDanPlan can be put to positive use here.  I'm just not too sure your statement above is wise considering that I drive on the opposite side of the road as you! Talk with you soon, I'm sure.

(BTW- the more we've dug into the TrackMan formula, the less impressed I am with how they value distance v. accuracy... but it's only one measurement for when you do your sim work, I suppose. It's "good enough" and allows you to set targets for improvement, and generally you are rewarded for hitting it longer and straighter. It's hard to mathematically assess the point value of a drive, since each drive on the course requires something different)

[Nosevi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nosevi

Will do. Most of it is relatively boring grind right now but will stop back now and then to report from time to time.

As others have said, this is really interesting to follow and I'm certainly a bit jealous of what you're able to do (and that studio!). It's clear yours is far more deliberate practice than a certain other 'plan' on here - for my own personal interest in self-improvement, what would you say the best thing you have learnt about how to practise is? I.e. Ratio of long/short, priority pieces vs playing etc.

Although I'm sure it isn't a 'one size fits all' type of deal, the one thing I've learned is that for me the idea of just going out and playing lots of golf is not the way forward. I spend way more time on the practice ground and doing drills etc than on the course. I'm sure as I progress this will change a bit but right now I'm only hitting the course maybe 2 or 3 times a week for practice rounds whereas I'm practising 6 days most weeks, morning and afternoon (and evening in some cases). I think it's important to keep going on the course so that you can learn to apply the skills you learn on the practice ground but I learn far more from a good practice session than after a round of golf.

Ratio long to short game I've put far more effort into the long game so far. Granted a sharp short game can get you out of trouble but with a strong long game you're in that trouble far less often. What it really boils down to to me is that it's tough to play bad golf from the middle of the fairway and middle of the green and I think a strong game generally needs to be built around a solid long game. With this philosophy in mind I more of less started my focus on the tee and am working my way into the green. I'm working on everything along the way but my focus has been far more on long game so far. That's how I see playing a golf hole - put the ball in play, fire it into the green, get it in the hole - so in my mind it makes sense approaching a training programme in that way.

The other thing with this is that in my mind there are certain prerequisites for playing golf at the highest level and one of them is distance off the tee. I'm not trying to be able to play my local course well, I'm looking to be able to play a tour set up well and having been to look at a couple it's a whole different deal. While I could get away with playing a shorter course with a 230-240 yard drive, playing a 7,200 yard set up with a lack of distance is never going to work. Granted a very few have (such as Cory Pavin) but they are far from the norm and doing that is getting harder and harder to do as course lengths rise. At the end of the day, at the point where you're 2 drives away from the pin on half the par 4s you're frankly never going to score well. Part of my programme is a fitness programme which concentrates on core stability but also incorporates leg drive, upper body strength and cardio and my driving distance has gone from a 250 yard average to now a 290 yard average. This was essential in my mind because if I couldn't do that the rest of the programme was simply a waste of time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nosevi

Randy has helped me to see where I am in different aspects of my game and more importantly where I need to concentrate my training. I'm not sure if he's aware but he is quite literally driving the programme from the other side of the Atlantic.

It has been very interesting to see all that goes on in your "programme," and maybe all of the whining I've done about TheDanPlan can be put to positive use here.  I'm just not too sure your statement above is wise considering that I drive on the opposite side of the road as you!  Talk with you soon, I'm sure.

(BTW- the more we've dug into the TrackMan formula, the less impressed I am with how they value distance v. accuracy... but it's only one measurement for when you do your sim work, I suppose. It's "good enough" and allows you to set targets for improvement, and generally you are rewarded for hitting it longer and straighter. It's hard to mathematically assess the point value of a drive, since each drive on the course requires something different)

Hi Randy. Will get back to your email later but regarding the data we were looking at 288 yards and 30 ft seems to fit the bill for all the data I've seen. Will delve deeper but those seem to be the numbers we're after :)

[todgot]

Very interesting to read and live vicariously through your journey. I suppose it is most better than average golfer's dream to be able to spend more time at this game and see how good you can get. I struggle with 3 jobs, wife and 3 kids to be able to get in time to get to the range and practice and dream of having one day a week off to be able to concentrate on my game.

[Nosevi]

Very interesting to read and live vicariously through your journey. I suppose it is most better than average golfer's dream to be able to spend more time at this game and see how good you can get. I struggle with 3 jobs, wife and 3 kids to be able to get in time to get to the range and practice and dream of having one day a week off to be able to concentrate on my game.

I've been very fortunate, that's for sure, and a lot of things fell into place (mostly financially) to allow me to leave work for a few years to give this a go.

I actually have 2 young boys and a wife who works (she's a school teacher) so have to do a bit of juggling myself as I look after the kids from after she leaves for work at 0700 until I drop them at school at 0900 and then from when I pick them up just after 1500 and look after them till she gets home at about 1800. What this means is my normal alarm call is 0500 so I can get gym work and cardio done before she leaves for work and I've just walked back in the door from being on the course from 1800 when she got home until now which is 2000 here. Now it's shower, dinner, write up my day, look through some video from the sim this afternoon and I'll finish up at about 2200.

It's a pretty long day but no complaints here, didn't expect this to be all plane sailing and easy. The massive bonus is I get to see the kids way more than when I was working. I used to leave home when they got up and was often not back until after they were in bed, now I spend quite a bit of time with them every day.

[Nosevi]

While I've said I can't really do a blow by blow, day by day account of what I get up to, today had a few interesting points so I thought I'd do just one 'day in the life of' sort of deal. Most of it is pretty dull but it maybe gives an insight into what I get up to.

Early morning was a fairly tame 30 mins on the exercise bike followed by core work then conditioning circuits, basically about 1 hour 30 mins phys. Although this was an easy day, it's killing me but making a big difference to my game so may as well get used to it.

Cooled off, had a shower, then went to one of the clubs I'm a member of and did short game practice (just chipping and putting which really needs some work) for a couple of hours. Most of my practice around the green is to try to emulate what you get on the course so I literally chuck the ball off the green, pick a random hole and have to get up and down to that hole. That's mixed in with more 'formal' practice in putting, generally concentrating on about 6 - 15 footers. I get most 3 footers, I miss most 30 footers, what I want to practice is putts I have a halfway decent chance of making birdies on. This may or may not be a good ploy but seems to be serving me well so far.

At the end of that I got chatting to a guy who practices where I do a lot of the time (we run into each other maybe 3 or 4 times a week and pass the time of day) who's a pretty useful golfer. When I say "pretty useful" he's off to the British Amateur Championship tomorrow, kind of like the US Amateur, the winner will be in The Open Championship (British Open) and US Open by default as well as traditionally getting an invite to The Masters. He's on form having won an Amateur event a few weeks ago so who knows, he may be headed your way next year. He's also been tipped for the full England international squad so will be over there for the Walker Cup anyway. The conversation ended with an agreement to a training session just after he gets back from the tournament. From my perspective it's another opportunity to see how a very good player plays the game which is all good for my development.

Swung via my other club to note that several of my biggest rivals have been knocked out of the annual club scratch matchplay championship, something I think I can live with. I'm targeting the scratch matchplay and scratch stroke play championships in my local club this year. Daft perhaps as it's my first year competing in any way but it's kind of the first step up a very long ladder IMO - best player at the club. If you never make that step the rest is pretty immaterial IMO.

The afternoon was meant to be spent with Jess, the female Pro I train with much of the time but something came up and she had to bail. We'll do a double session (morning and afternoon) tomorrow instead. As she wasn't about I hit the swing studio to work on some drills Brian (the other tour pro I train with) and I had worked out for me. Essentially I'm hitting the ball really hard but not getting great compression on the ball. Spent 3 hours working on drills, drills and more drills to try to improve this. Starting to get results so worth spending the time.

This weekend I'm playing in a match for one of my club's 1st teams so had my playing partner over (it's pairs matchplay) for a joint sim session, mostly dialling in his yardages a bit as I'm pretty happy with mine as I use a launch monitor pretty much every day, but mixed in with some friendly nearest the pin and longest drive comps for good measure. Interestingly, in the pre-season our games were fairly similar so we had a fairly simple game plan for the friendlies - simply play our own ball as best we can. I now out drive him by between 40-50 yards (surprised him a tad) so that's changed a little and if he can play the safe game I'll go for it a little more.

Finished up at about 20:30 in time for sorting through some data over dinner.

So that's kind of 'a day in the life of' although tomorrow will be more fun I'm sure. This is mostly due to the fact that Jess is far prettier than either my playing partner for the coming weekend or the guy playing in the Amateur Championship - she's 23 I think, blonde, slim, pretty........ I have an extremely trusting and understanding wife - you never know, I may even be able to concentrate and learn something about golf

[rkim291968]

Good luck with your match and stroke club scratch tournaments.   That's a start!   Too bad that some of your biggest competitions were knocked off already.   It'd been a better test for you.

[Nosevi]

It is really although that's always the way in a knockout matchplay competition - the best golfer doesn't always get through. You can only play who comes in front of you though so I'll just see how it goes. It's year one (I started 'life' as a 5.5 handicapper) so I'm kind of new to competing (only been in a couple of comps so far) so realistically I want to do well this year and won't be beating myself up if I don't win one, other or both. next year I'll be a little more critical of my performance but this year is all about getting out there and getting used to competing at the same time as steadily improving in all areas.

[rkim291968]

It is really although that's always the way in a knockout matchplay competition - the best golfer doesn't always get through. You can only play who comes in front of you though so I'll just see how it goes. It's year one (I started 'life' as a 5.5 handicapper) so I'm kind of new to competing (only been in a couple of comps so far) so realistically I want to do well this year and won't be beating myself up if I don't win one, other or both. next year I'll be a little more critical of my performance but this year is all about getting out there and getting used to competing at the same time as steadily improving in all areas.

That's a good approach.  This is year two in comp and I feel I learn something from every tournament I lost (winning a tournament is one of my 2015 goals).   Win or lose, I think you will gain so much.

[Nosevi]

Well, I played my first official match for my club (ie not a friendly), a pairs matchplay format against another club at their place and the bottom line is we lost. You win as a team or lose as a team but it's fair to say my playing partner (who is our current club stroke play champion so a decent golfer) had a nightmare off the tee. I actually missed one fairway over the whole round, he found 2 ponds, an OOB, lost ball and the woods on a couple of occasions. Like I said, he's a good golfer but today his swing just wasn't there. I guess it happens.

This gives an idea of the course. It was a par 71 with course rating (we call it Standard Scratch Score but it more or less amounts to the same thing) of 73.0 and was playing a little over it's 6715 yards so not too short for a par 71. It was also raining a tad which didn't help all that much. This is the course.

http://www.kenwickparkgolf.co.uk/tour-of-the-course/

Leaving aside the fact we lost (tough to do but still) my play wasn't too bad if I'm honest. We're our club's number one pairing so had a fair audience on the first tee (members from our's and the other club's team) which always helps and it was a par 4 playing 460 yards today. I got a good one down the middle leaving about 165 in and that was the last time I felt nervous tbh. Other areas of my game, my chipping was pretty sharp most of the time, got up and down out of the 2 bunkers I went in and putted ok but nothing startling (lots of safe pars). I didn't hit enough greens though bearing in mind I was shooting at them from the short stuff or the tee on all but one occasion so iron play will be a focus for the next few weeks to try to tighten that up. Overall I failed to get up and down a few times and shot 4 over I think. Could have been better but it was all in the approach play so I know where my focus needs to be for a bit.

All in all though I really enjoyed it. Enjoyed hitting good shots (especially the drives) and didn't get too annoyed hitting not so good ones, just went and tried to chip it close instead. Saw a guy in the group behind duff a chip and wack his bag with the club, swearing and getting really 'steamed'. Utterly pointless IMO, pretty sure it didn't help his play thereafter. Think I'm going to like competing though

[rkim291968]

Very good.  Congrats to your effort (not so much for your teammate).   Am looking forward to your individual competition report.

[Nosevi]

Very good.  Congrats to your effort (not so much for your teammate).   Am looking forward to your individual competition report.

He just had a bad day, he's normally a really steady player, probably less 'streaky' than me tbh. I guess it happens and in pairs matchplay if one of you is having a bad day it's tough to win the match. That said, if my iron play had matched my play off the tee we'd have done better too.

While I always want to win matches, for me this first year is just about getting out there. I guess everyone is different but for me I think there's more pressure in a team match as you don't want to let your playing partner or the rest of the team down. In individual play if you mess it up that day it only effects you so you can simply shrug your shoulders and walk away. I don't really get blowing up on a golf course like the guy in the group behind us. Just don't see how that's going to help your play afterwards.